Northside: Neighborhood's future depends on healthy choices

A lack of sidewalks in the Northside neighborhood makes it difficult for residents to take a stroll for exercise or walk from one place to another.

By ANDREW DOUGHMANandrew.doughman@shj.com

A lack of sidewalks in the Northside neighborhood makes it difficult for residents to take a stroll for exercise or walk from one place to another.As the city of Spartanburg, Northside Development Corporation and its allies look to redevelop the neighborhood, they're not only looking at building new homes but making the neighborhood more liveable and conducive to active lifestyles, and generally healthier.For example, that could mean streetlights on Old Howard Gap Road where Annie Tate Lynn, 64, and her friends used to walk. It could also mean a sidewalk so they would not have to walk along streets in fear of being hit by speeding cars.“That's a big issue for me: sidewalks,” said officer Chris Taylor of Spartanburg Public Safety, whose office is in the Northwest Recreation Center on the Northside. “People complain about people being in the road, but there's nowhere else to go.”Children who leave the recreation center after sundown have to walk in the street in the dark, he said.A walk down those sidewalks could lead to restaurants and grocery stores, both of which are absent in the neighborhood today.“If you happen to find yourself hungry and in need of food and without adequate transportation, you're walking to the Lil Cricket,” said Curt McPhail project coordinator for the Northside Development Corporation. “That isn't a judgment call. That is just the fact of the matter.”

Investors hope encouraging residents to develop healthier lifestyles could also help reduce health care costs.“The kinds of outcomes that we see are reduced asthma, reduced obesity, improved human health as a consequence of investments in place and investments in human development, those kinds of outcomes really will carry the day when we're looking at a budget that is dominated by health expenditures,” said Nancy O. Andrews, CEO of the Low Income Investment Fund out of San Francisco, at a community development conference in Atlanta this past year.

A marked decrease in crime has made it easier for families to walk without fear in the Northside, but today's Northside is still far from the commercial hub it once was.Recreational amenities have decreased too; the county pulled up the playground and the basketball courts in nearby Cleveland Park.The picnic tables at Chapel Street Park had to be removed because drunken people began to habitually use them as beds, said Katherine Lyle, 76, whose house is across the street from the park.The corner store on Folsom and Howard Street sells beer and snack foods. A dirt path through several vacant lots leading to it is littered with discarded plastic vodka bottles and larger, 40-ounce glass bottles of beer.The store owner has seen houses demolished all around him as part of the redevelopment effort. He said the Northside Development Corporation's realtor has called to chat.“I'm not sure of my future in this place just because of the unknowns,” said Mike Borad, store owner. “Nothing is discussed. My frustration is that nothing is clear. What are they planning to do the next few years?”One of the ideas for the neighborhood is beginning to take shape just down the block. On the site of the old Spartan Mill company store is a placard advertising a “healthy food hub.” The $1 million project is paid for with federal and private dollars and will construct the city's Hub City Farmer's Market, a community kitchen, greenhouse, chicken coop, and a working garden from which the grocery will source some of its food. The hub will also create jobs in a neighborhood sorely in need of them.“We're looking at making this part of the identity of the Northside,” said Ana Parra, director of the farmer's market, noting that the community lacks a gathering place. “Food is such a big part of who you are. You got to get people to the point that they want to take care of themselves. You have to have pride in who you are.”Lauded by supporters as a boon to a neighborhood devoid of healthy food choices, Borad does not view it as competition.“It's good if they're able to do it,” he said. “I do doubt. This neighborhood, people don't have much money to spend. It depends if they're able to survive.”Parra said the store will be able to keep costs down because much of the food will be grown on-site, and the store will accept food stamps.

While the project's nonprofit investors, the Mary Black Foundation, the Hub City Farmer's Market, the city of Spartanburg and the Butterfly Foundation have a successful track record, investing in health and wellness is a gamble.In 2003, the Hub City Farmer's Market partnered with the local neighborhood association to build a large community garden behind Oakview Apartments, a 105-unit public housing complex.“It moved the crime away from the housing area,” Parra said. “People started taking pride in the area around them.”For a time, the garden flourished with lettuce, kale, corn and other vegetables. But interest in working in the garden declined. Today the area is again a grassy field. Without community involvement, the project wilted and died. Learning that lesson, the food hub is a response to what many neighbors said they wanted.Community members will again have opportunities to say what they want as the redevelopment planning phase gets started this month.“We need to get back to learning to eat healthy,” said Wanda Cheeks, who works at the city of Spartanburg's Northwest Recreation Center and lives in the Northside. “It'll be good to have something in walking distance too.”Cheeks doesn't own a car, and neither do many people in the neighborhood.The food hub, when built later this year, will be less than a 10-minute walk from her front door and will also be within walking distance for students at the nearby Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.